ByteScope

Vertical Video Converter

Make a landscape video fit a phone screen — blurred background, encoded in your browser, never uploaded.

Your files never leave your browser — all processing is local.

Good to know

  • The whole video is re-encoded, which takes a while and costs a little picture quality.
  • Crop keeps one fixed position for the entire video; a person who walks out of that window is cut off. A version that follows people is not here yet.
  • HDR video from recent iPhones comes out as SDR, so colors can look paler.
  • Your video is not uploaded.

Output is H.264 MP4. Speed depends on your computer's encoder. Without a save dialog (browsers other than desktop Chrome or Edge) the result is limited to about 1 GB.

Related

About this tool

Drop a landscape video, keep 9:16, and get an MP4 that fills a phone screen without stretching anyone. The whole picture stays in the middle, and the empty space above and below is filled with a blurred, slightly darkened copy of the same frame, the look most short-video editors use for Reels, Shorts and TikTok. Everything runs inside this tab with the browser's own video encoder, so nothing is uploaded, and there is no watermark and no sign-up.

Four shapes, three ways to fill

Pick 9:16 for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and stories, 4:5 or 1:1 for feed posts, or 16:9 to go the other way and put an upright phone video into a regular YouTube frame with blurred sides. Then choose what fills the gap: a blurred background that you can darken from 0 to 60%, a solid color (black, white or any color you pick), or a crop that cuts the sides off so the picture runs edge to edge. In crop mode a slider sets which part of the width you keep. The foreground size control, from 100% to 150%, makes the main picture bigger and trims a little off its edges.

Output size and quality

The output follows the shape you pick and the short side of your video: a 1080p landscape clip becomes 1080×1920, and anything larger is scaled down to the cap you choose (1080p by default, 720p, or up to 4K). Phone videos shot upright are turned the right way before the layout is worked out. The preview next to the video uses the same layout as the export, so what you see is where things land. Quality works like Compress Video: pick high, medium or low, or set a target size in MB when the file has to fit an upload limit.

Honest limits

The whole video is re-encoded, which takes a while and costs a little picture quality. Crop mode keeps one fixed position for the entire video, so a person who walks out of that window is cut off; a version that follows people is not here yet. HDR video from recent iPhones comes out as SDR, so colors can look paler. There is no trimming on this page: cut the part you want first with the Video Trimmer, add captions with Burn Subtitles, and if the result is too big to send, shrink it with Compress Video. Your video is never uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

How do I turn a 16:9 video into 9:16 for Reels or TikTok?

Drop the video, keep the 9:16 shape and the blurred background, and start the export. A 1080p landscape video comes out as a 1080×1920 MP4 with the full picture in the middle and a blurred copy above and below. Check the preview first; if you would rather fill the whole screen, switch to crop and slide the window to the part you want to keep.

Will my video be stretched or squashed?

No. The picture is always scaled by the same amount in both directions, so circles stay round. With the blurred or solid background, the whole frame is kept and centered. With crop, the sides are cut off instead. Setting the foreground size above 100% enlarges the picture and trims a little from its edges, never stretches it.

Blurred background or crop: which should I use?

Use the blurred background when everything in the frame matters, such as a group shot, a stage or a screen recording; nothing is lost, but the picture is smaller on the phone. Use crop when the subject stays near one spot and you want the picture to fill the screen. Crop keeps one position for the whole video, so anyone who moves out of that window is cut off.

Can it follow the person in the video automatically?

Not yet. Crop mode uses one fixed position that you set with the slider, for the entire video. If the subject moves around a lot, the blurred background is the safer choice, because it keeps the whole frame in view.

Can I make a vertical video horizontal instead?

Yes. Pick 16:9 and an upright phone video is placed in the middle of a landscape frame, with blurred copies of it on the left and right. That is the usual way to post a phone clip as a regular YouTube video without black bars.

Why do the colors of my iPhone video look paler afterwards?

Recent iPhones and many Android phones record HDR video by default. This page outputs standard SDR video and does not tone-map HDR, so bright, saturated scenes can look flatter. The page warns you when it detects an HDR source. If colors matter, switch the camera to SDR before recording.

Is my video uploaded?

No. The file is read from your disk, decoded, redrawn and encoded inside your browser, and the new MP4 is written back to your disk. There is no server in between, which is also why there is no queue, no watermark and no sign-up.